IT certification opinions...

[scheides]

Nice dude, go for it! Stay in touch on this, very interested to see how this turns out for ya!

[bramagedained]

Just a small FYI, the CompTia certs are no longer lifetime as of 1 Dec 10.

For some reason, the Army is a fan of their stuff. Despite being almost a joke, N+ and A+ might be good to have.

For my job, which is mostly maintenance/repair of highside equipment we do
some of the networking too. By 2012 we're all supposed to have at least N+ and Security+. It's strongly encouraged to have CCNA as well.

As far as I know, all of the jobs that touch the network require a Secret clearance at the very least. Those they will pretty much hand out to anyone that isn't a fellon or currently has a warrant somewhere. The investigation isn't super time consuming and there's no polygraph. On the other hand, my Top Secret investigation took 6 months, they sent investigators out to 3 different states to talk to people I listed as aquantences and I was polygraphed.

DOIM is the main IT "group" the Army goes through, ITT is the most prevalent contractor I see here in Afghanistan.

Networks above Secret are managed by a government agency. Almost everyone that works for them is prior service military.

Contracting with the Army overseas=$$$. Every one of them I've talked to over here makes more than 100K/year. Even the generator mechanic down the road.

I know as soon as my contract with the Army ends in August of next year I'm going to be a contractor doing the exact same job I do now.

[mlomker]

Originally Posted by bramagedained

Just a small FYI, the CompTia certs are no longer lifetime as of 1 Dec 10.

I've had the A+ forever. I just ordered the books for the S+. It does get annoying to have to retest all of the time but that's life.

I'll be back to a CCNP before the Evo sees the track this Spring. I've worked on the gear every day since I first certified in `98. I just need to skim through the study guides again.

The money would be the only reason to go, of course. I don't know if I'd even accept 100k...it'll need to be up there. If that means I have to spend the year piling on certs then so be it.

My buddy is over there but there's probably only a couple years left, he's thinking 2014 at the latest. He mentioned ITT and DRS but he's getting me contact info for a 3rd one that he says pays the best.

Thanks for the info on network classification. I obviously didn't know that.

[bramagedained]

Security+ isn't terribly challenging. It was the first IT cert I got. Some of the practice questions at the end of chapters are amusing, whoever wrote the book has a sense of humor. One of the answer choices was to the effect of "The user is on drugs and is imagining things."

I was just saying 100k as reference, that's the lowest I've heard of anyone making that's a civillian.

The Intel/ Intel equipment techs make 175K-225K. Which is sort of frustrating, since they do the same job I do and I made less than 40K this year.

There's certainly more than a couple years left. My unit already has plans to come back in late 2012.

[mlomker]

Originally Posted by bramagedained

The Intel/ Intel equipment techs make 175K-225K.

My buddy said that 250k wasn't out of the question. I nearly fell off my chair, of course. That's 3x what I'm earning here.

[mlomker]

This is who I'm dealing with:

http://careers.dsci.com/viewjob.php?job_id=233